The Dreamer
by kokoyuki27
Summary: Arthur, along with several users from different countries, was given the newly developed gaming device named Dreamer for a test period of one month. In this one month, Arthur has no choice but go along with the Dreamer's First-Hand-Experience system, and survive the game along with some very interesting people and a very annoying game programmer.
1. A Slightly Different November

People love November.

It's the month right after Halloween and just before Christmas, a month where autumn and winter meets in the most enchanting way. From the chilly but not freezing weather all the way to the paths covered with golden fallen leaves, people love November.

Even in London, where November is known for its constant drizzle and early snow and people are known for complaining about the weather, they love November. As a novice teacher starting his first year of learning and teaching in a particular University in London, Arthur Kirkland too, loves November.

However, this year's November meant a little more to him than any other in the past, and he had been eagerly waiting for its arrival; along with the new game device he ordered. Little did he know that this November would mean a lot more to him in a long run.

Arthur had never thought of himself as a gamer. Sure he had played a few online games in his life, but never as intense as he thought a gamer would be. He had never thought of buying any game device either. As far as he was concerned, a laptop was more than enough to support his light gaming habits.

So to be precise, he was eagerly waiting for the new game device that his friend had asked him to test out, a device which his friend claimed would be an eye opener.

By the second day of November, the package containing the device had arrived at Arthur's house. Having signed all the forms and waved the deliveryman goodbye, Arthur immediately turned to examine the package. It was a box a little smaller than four regular shoe boxes stacked up together, and felt rather heavy in his arms. He shook it out of habit and heard some rustling sound inside. Then, grabbing a penknife, he opened it without hesitations, and dug a helmet-like device out of the box of Styrofoam pellets.

Arthur stared at the device in his hands as he flipped it about. The basic structure of the device resembled a fancy cyclist helmet, but other features like the eye piece with a digital screen fixed on it and the several switches and plugs at both sides of the helmet gave Arthur the feeling that this wasn't any normal helmet.

Well he could understand that this probably wasn't a helmet, but the thought of this being a game device still felt weird to him.

Turning to his laptop, Arthur turned it on and switched to video chat straight away. As expected, his friend was already waiting for him.

"Good evening Arthur Kun." The person on the other end of the chat smiled politely at Arthur.

Arthur smiled his greeting. "Pulling an all-nighter again? It's four am in Japan now, right?"

The person, Kiku, smiled again. "I'm afraid so; such is the unfortunate life of a programmer."

Arthur laughed.

"If it makes you feel any better, the life of a teacher in training is a sleepless one too."

"Ah, but rewarding, nonetheless?"

"To speak the truth, nothing is more rewarding than enough sleep." He joked, "Enough about jobs. I got your package. The… Helmet."

Kiku's tired eyes brightened at the mention of the helmet. "That is great news, I was a little worried that it wouldn't arrive on time. Have you tried it on?"

"Well… No, not yet." Arthur muttered, holding the helmet in his hands for a second round of evaluation. "How does this work anyway? Do I just wear it?"

Taking Arthur's questions down, Kiku spent some time explaining the basics of the helmet.

"The helmet is a new gaming device that I have been working on. We named it the "Dreamer", and by wearing it, you obtain first-hand experience in the games that you are playing. When you first wear the Dreamer, some scanning and movement recognition will be carried out. After which, you will be free to begin your game."

First-hand experience he said…

"Is this device safe?"

"Hai. Even though the Dreamers are still in the Beta stage, they have passed all possible safety tests for such a device. It is absolutely safe." Kiku nodded rather confidently. "On a related note, I would like to thank you for agreeing to test the Dreamer out, Arthur Kun." He bowed.

"No need to thank me, we've been friends for a long time now, this is nothing. " Arthur smiled, waving dismissively at Kiku. "Rather, you mentioned that for better date collection, you decided to go for users from different countries right? Any luck?"

Kiku nodded, rather elated. "Thanks to the company, we have located one to two user in several major countries. However, due to the nature of the game program used, the users had to fulfill some basic criteria."

Arthur didn't know what Kiku meant by 'basic criteria', but seeing that he got the Dreamer, he probably fulfilled all of them. What bothered him, however, was the nature of the game program.

"So, what kind of game are we playing?"

"Since the Dreamer works on a different system, new games have to be specially made to suit this program." Kiku explained.

Arthur nodded; different devices need different game systems, he knew that much.

"The development of the game program was handled to a company in a different country. From what I've been told, a skilled programmer was 'enthusiastically working on it, and finished the whole system in less than two weeks'. In exchange for the satisfying work, he was recommended as the user in that country."

"So I'll meet him in the game? I'll meet you too, right?" Arthur knew nuts about a programmer's work and progress, but he guessed that creating a whole new game system in two weeks sounded pretty impressive. Just for that, he was interested in meeting this skilled programmer.

Kiku nodded once again.

"The game seems to be about surviving a zombie apocalypse."

…

Scratch that, he's going to avoid the skilled programmer in every way possible. A zombie apocalypse? Really?

"Location? Goal? Duration?" Arthur started his train of questions again while Kiku raced to catch them.

"The location seems to be in America, and as for the goal and duration, we can only be certain of it when we enter the game."

Arthur had started regretting his choice of helping test Dreamer now. It's not that it's troublesome or anything, but more due to the fact that the game of choice here wasn't of a genre or type that he fancied. Of course, he could not just back out now, not when the Dreamer was already with him. There's no other way, he's going to have to play the game.

On the bright side, the beta period lasts only for a month, and he's only free to play games during weekends. In other words, he would only have to play the game for eight days max.

"Excuse me, Arthur Kun. I forgot to mention this, but for the convenience of the users, the Dreamer is built in a way that you can use it and rest at the same time. Hence, you can simply continue your game as you rest for the day."

Wow would you look at that, using it in your sleep, a literal Dreamer.

"So… You mean I have to play it every day?"

"If possible, that would be great."

"Can I at least start after I received the game card?"

"Arthur kun, the game card is included in the box along with Dreamer."

…

Well, that shattered the last bit of his hope.

People love November. It's a month of constant weather change and lovely scenery, a month with the most of Nature's magic at work.

Arthur loves November too, but he had a feeling that this particular November, things are going to be different for him.

* * *

A/N: Back to fanfic writing after a long near 6 months break. I hope some of my readers still remember me. I read about the game scenario in many books and the anime SAO, so I thought why the hell not. It's a little cliche yes, but what the heck. Let's try it.

Reviews are loved. Thanks for reading.


	2. The Player's Room

Arthur had a considerably bad day at work today.

Sighing to himself, he locked the door to the simple three-rooms flat behind him and loosened his scarf. Having made a detour to his bedroom to set his things down, Arthur turned back to the kitchen to settle his dinner.

He accidentally dozed off while marking the students' work, and by the time he woke up, ten minutes had passed and there was a blanket on his shoulders. The female colleague sitting beside him simply smiled and said something about the others taking a nap on the job now and then too. He guessed that meant he wasn't in any serious trouble for slacking at work, but he did feel really guilty about it. He was paid to teach, not sleep in the air-conditioned staff room in the middle of the day.

"Maybe it was a bad idea to try and finish that stack of instructions in one night." Arthur muttered to himself, accompanied with yet another sigh.

He figured that if he was going to test the Dreamer, he better do a good job. So after his conversation with Kiku, he made himself a nice cup of tea and spent the night reading the unreasonably thick device instruction and game manual. By the time he was done, it was nearly two Am and he only managed four hours of sleep before rushing to work.

Four hours was definitely not enough for what he had to deal with.

When the Grandfather's clock in the living room struck nine, Arthur kept the last plate in the shelf and turned to prepare for sleep. He was dead tired for one, and he did agree to meet Kiku in the game at this time. Since it's a weekend tomorrow, Arthur figured that he might as well sleep early.

Putting the Dreamer on, he adjusted himself in a comfortable position in bed, and closed his eyes. He dozed off almost immediately, remembering only the faint buzzing from the Dreamer.

* * *

When Arthur opened his eyes again, he was half floating in an empty space. In front of him was the projection of a digital screen, with words being constantly typed on it.

"Welcome dear player," He read. "To the survival game of a lifetime. "

He supposed the screen was right about something; to be able to experience a zombie apocalypse first hand, that's more than enough for one lifetime.

"A year ago, America was attacked by a disease that appeared out of the blue. The disease wiped out more than ninety eight percent of the American population. But instead of resting in peace, the diseased and deceased came back as what we call zombies. These zombies know little but to kill and to feed. And you, dear player, are their favorite food- This sounds very familiar."

Arthur paused the reading for a moment, wondering where he had read about something similar before. Then it hit him that things related to zombie apocalypse; be it movies or games or books, the all seem to have similar background story such as this one. He laughed to himself at the lack of creativity on the game programmer's part and continued reading.

"America's now abandoned by the world, and you are our only hope left. Summon your courage and depend on your wits. Locate the other survivors and work together to find the rumored cure hidden somewhere in this country. Best of Luck. America's future is in good hands."

The moment Arthur had finished reading the last sentence, a strong beam of light suddenly shot out from the screen and filled the space. lest damaging his sight, Arthur screwed his eyes shut and shielded himself from the light with his hands. Even so, the light was still too bright for comfort.

The lights finally died out after what felt like forever, and opening his eyes, he found himself in yet another place. It was a room this time, a little bigger than his bedroom. The room was poorly lit; the only source of light was from the cracks on the painted window fixed on one of the moldy walls. Arthur squinted, waiting for them to get used to the darkness as he fumbled around.

Judging from the ragged furniture in the room, he figured that this must be the player's bedroom; in other words, his bedroom in the game. The air in the room was rather stale but bearable, though he was a little disturbed by the faint scent of blood that was slowly reaching him.

Something's dead in this room.

While he panicked at the realization, his eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. Boy he wished he had not, for what he saw probably gave him more shock than a zombie ever could. The room was in a worse state than he thought: dirty clothes thrown all around, papers and magazine dating a few months back sprawled all over the damp ground. Several of them had photos of panic and death, and the headlines all spoke of the disease and zombie outbreak.

Empty bottles and cans piled up at a corner of the room, tattered food packaging was littered all over, and Arthur seriously couldn't find a single spot on the ground that he could consider moderately acceptable. All four walls of the room were heavy spray painted on. Judging from the colors, there had been several different layers of graffiti on them. The latest coat was in blood red, spelling words like "We're doomed" and "There's no hope".

Well, seemed like he wondered wrongly, this can't be his room. No way would he be that desperate, not even in a game scenario.

It was then when he noticed the source of the blood scent.

There, lying in a corner, was a dead rat the size of a small cat. He didn't know how that even made sense but there it was, lying on its back and bleeding from god knows where. The blood was still oozing out though, so the rat must have died a while ago. A blood trail led from the rat to the painted window, giving him some ideas about the death of the rat.

Poor fella, dying in a place like this.

Arthur had a feeling that if he doesn't find a way out of here, he would be next.

…

Speak of which, he seemed to have forgotten about something.

"Oh, right. Kiku." Snapping his fingers together, he called the menu bar out and enabled the chat option. Immediately, a chat popped up.

"Hello Arthur Kun. How has the game been?" It was only voice chat, like a phone call. But Arthur figured that he would eventually meet Kiku in the game, and thought less of it.

"Hello Kiku. Sorry for being late. I was… stunned by my surrounding." He explained, smiling sheepishly even though Kiku couldn't see it.

"I see. If that's the case, I take it that you are still in the Player's room?"

… So this wreck of a place… Was really his room?

"Ah… Umm… I guess you can say so…"

"Arthur Kun, to officially start the game, you have to escape from your room. "

Escape the room? In a zombie survival game? What?

"Escape. From this room." He repeated doubtfully.

"Hai." Kiku replied with the least bit of hesitation.

"Right." Be that way. What was he expecting. "There's no door though…" Now that Kiku had mentioned it, he realized that the room was literally all four walls. Apart from the painted window, there's no other opening.

…

Window. Huh.

"Kiku, am I allowed to destroy things in this game?" He asked, scanning the room before picking up a wooden chair.

"Please feel free to do so. It's a first-hand experience game after all. Alfred Kun specifically made it that the player has a free range of choice and action. 'You can do anything as long as you can think of it! It's a flexible game about wits and courage!'… Was what he said."

Truth to be told, the only thing Arthur wanted to do now was to clean this mess up. He coughed.

"This Alfred… He sounds like a very noisy person." Arthur guessed that 'Alfred' was probably the name of that American game programmer.

Kiku chuckled softly. "It's best to know the person of subject by yourself to affirm your conclusions."

"Right, can't wait." Arthur rolled his eyes; predicting that his encounter with Alfred wouldn't be a peaceful one. "Well then. I'll be excusing myself now. Let's meet up soon." He stopped in front of the window and held the chair up.

"Hai. The area within five meter radius from the Player's room is the safe zone. So feel free to explore the place, or call me if you need assistance in any way. All the best, Arthur kun." With that, the chat closed with a soft beep.

"If I'm allowed to do whatever I want in this game," He grinned, and swung the chair at the window with all his might, smashing right through the thin glass. "Then this game might actually be worth my time."

A smashing entrance, check.

Arthur grinned contently at his work. The moment the window broke, rays of light and fresh air entered the room, bringing a brighter side out of the messy place. Not that it was a side Arthur would better appreciate though. The light only made more parts of the room visible; messy, dusty parts.

It was then when Arthur noticed something that wasn't there before.

Sitting in a corner just made visible by the light, was a metal baseball bat.

…

Arthur and the bat had a few moments of silent argument before he sighed in defeat and walked to pick it up.

He had expected the need for weapons in such games, but using a blunt baseball bat was still a little too much for him to accept. For one, he had never played baseball before. So to him, that bat might as well be a piece of glorified metal stick. Apart from blinding swinging that around, he had no idea what he could use it for.

"I swing it at their head…right?" Swinging the bat about to grasp the feel of it, he decided to make finding a better weapon his first objective.

He took a few more minutes examining the place for usable items, and apart from a lighter stained by a strange fluid that he refused to recognize, there was pretty much nothing left for him to take. Nodding to himself, he gave the room one last glance, and leapt out through the window.

"There should be a kitchen knife somewhere…" Staring at the few run down houses in the safe area, Arthur muttered. He's been cooking his own meals for as long as he could remember; a kitchen knife would definitely be better than this glorified piece of metal.

* * *

A/N: Man this is one of the most interesting piece of story I've done in a while. Let's guess how long i can drag this before Alfred enters the game. /laughs/

Reviews are appreciated~


	3. The First Week

When Kiku finally met up with Arthur in the game, he was more than a little stunned to see the Brit slice a zombie's head off with what seemed like an ordinary kitchen knife.

Kitchen knife.

"Pardon me Arthur kun, but could it be that you cook regularly?" He asked after Arthur settled another zombie almost effortlessly. They have agreed on meeting up outside the city's library building since it's tall and easy to find. The zombies don't seem to gather much around here too, so it was considered a safe spot to meet up too.

"Oh, you can tell?" Slicing the last zombie up, Arthur swiped the remaining blood off his blade and walked back to Kiku. "I live alone, so I try to cook my own food if possible."

"I see. I tend to cook my own food once in a while, but I've never thought of battling with a kitchen knife." Kiku eyed the kitchen again.

Sensing the glance, Arthur smiled sheepishly and waved his kitchen knife a little. "I never thought I would be fighting with this either. But it's far better than the baseball bat I found; at least I've used a kitchen knife before. Speaking of which, what's your weapon?"

The two of them were immediately attacked by zombies the moment they met, but Arthur was the only one to take out his weapon and fight back. Kiku… Kiku was too stunned by Arthur's weapon that he simply stood watching.

"It's a katana, a traditional Japanese sword. I was lucky to find it in my player's room." He smiled, giving the katana at his waist a pat.

… Well, that certainly wasn't fair. Arthur sighed at the bat he found; no way that thing could beat a katana.

"…Anyway, the area should be safe for the time being, shall we start discussing on what to do next? This is a survival game, right?" Throwing the talk about weapons aside, Arthur asked as the two sat around a study table outside the library building. Electricity has long gone out in this part of the city, and the inside of the building was too dark to be considered safe.

Kiku nodded, taking the map out of his items tab. The game was made to be as realistic as possible, but some game functions such as the item tab and path indicator still made the players' job a lot easier.

"Due to time constrains and the fact that this game was simply made to test the validity of the Dreamer, the map covers a moderately small area. Small as it may be, the place should be more than enough for a good game experience." He explained, spreading the rolled up map on the rusting table.

The map was no doubt made of paper, and it would seem like just a normal map if not for that one flickering red dot on the paper. Arthur pointed at it.

"And… what's this?"

"That's the indicator, part of the map function. It pin points our current location, and will be able to mark out our path so far. Your map should have it to, Arthur Kun." Kiku pressed the red dot once, and simply watched as the dot stopped flickering, and grew into a line to mark his previous path.

Mimicking his actions, Arthur took his map out and marked his path as well. Comparing the two maps, it was clear that Kiku started his game in the gamer's room south of their current location, and Arthur's in the west. The library building itself was nearing the corner of the map, which meant that their best path would be north and east wards.

"Our current location is classified as a yellow zone. The zombies here can be handled with ease. As we move closer to the map's center, the locations will change from yellow to orange then to red. The very center is the black zone, where I believe is the most dangerous location."

"Don't tell me, our destination is the black zone." Arthur had seen enough movies to know where this was going.

"As expected from the observant teacher." Kiku smiled a little too brightly.

Arthur had a bad feeling about this. A very bad one. "We're not planning to just charge for it right? Kitchen knife and all, I don't think I'm ready to deal with any stronger zombies."

He heaved a sigh of relief when Kiku shook his head. "The game programmer would most definitely hope for us to do that,"

Screw the game programmer, Arthur thought.

"But we are going to take advantage of the safety here and better prepare ourselves before we move on. Our priority for the week would be stocking up food supplies, upgrading our weapons, and finding other players. We will move on to the Orange areas on the second week." He replied, using the red dot to mark out some places on the map: a few near the borders of the Orange areas, and a few near the edges of the map. One of them was particularly close to where they were.

Finding the plan reasonable, Arthur nodded in agreement.

Unlike real life scenario, they didn't have to carry a real bag with them and suffer from its weight. Instead, the items tab acted as a virtual bag capable of containing almost any object. Each item tab has 30 cells, so each player can carry up to 30 things. The same item can be stacked up on the same cell for at least 10 times, so overall, it should be more than enough.

Convenience aside, there's two addition to the game that Arthur couldn't quite agree with. The first would be the fact that they keep their real appearance in the game. Kiku explained that it was for a pinch of realness, but Arthur blamed it on the lazy game programmer who refused to build a character data bank.

The second would be that they could actually feel pain in the game. Who the hell thought that it was okay to add that in a survival game? They could be ambushed by a pack of zombies for all they know and they would actually die a painful death. Honestly now that's just ridiculous. Once again, Kiku insisted that it was crucial to include pain for a close-to-reality experience. Fortunately, to reduce stress put on the body, pain was reduced to a mere 10 percent, so the player can still get enough rest while playing the game.

Arthur thought that was… comforting enough.

"I've done some calculations yesterday to make searching for the other players easier. However, there seems to be a mistake in the calculation. Among the several locations found, only five of them pin points a player."

"But there's a lot more players than that, right?" Arthur sincerely hoped that the dot particularly close to them would bring them to one of the players. It's always better to move in a bigger group in this kind of situation.

Kiku nodded. "The search for players would be more effective if we split up, but given the situation, our chance of survival would be better if we move in a minimum group of two."

"Right. So let's check that dot first." Arthur pointed to the nearest dot, the one he's been staring at for quite a while now. For some reason, he had a feeling that approaching the dot would mean a lot of trouble…. "It's near the shopping area too. We might be able to find supplies or anything useful there. It won't be a wasted trip even if there isn't a player there."

"Affirmative. We will head there tomorrow. Arthur kun, it seems that you will have to wake up soon." Kiku smiled.

"Huh? But tomorrow's a weekend… Ah! The school sports day!" Coming to the realization, Arthur panicked a little and immediately called up the menu. "I'll see you tomorrow then Kiku, take care!" With that, he logged off.

"See you later, Arthur kun." He waved, smiling faintly. "Now then… to fix some bugs in the game."

* * *

Next chapter:

A game checkpoint is revealed and the game steps up.


	4. Easy Approach

Arthur had to admit that he wasn't a sports person, and waking up early on a weekend for the school's sports day wasn't exactly something he consider exciting, especially when he's just there for the attendance.

Well on the bright side he would rather be there just for the sake of being there instead of sweating like a sick dog under the hot sun chasing after a ball.

So sitting on a bench under the shade, he watched the kids play on the field and occasionally cheered his class on. All sports and fun aside, sports day to the teachers was really just another opportunity to show that his or her class is the best. It's rather childish, yes, but the feeling of other teachers staring at your class in awe was in its own way enjoyable.

... Well unfortunately, his class wasn't winning.

"It's okay class, we'll beat the rest in the final exams, won't we?" giving the nearest student a pat on the head, he encouraged at the end of the one sided game. His class, like him, was more brains than broad. It was usually something to be proud of almost everyday, but today just had to be the day where broad decides everything.

The class nodded, spirits lifted a little and smiles surfacing.

"Good. Now, you did a great job, so go get some rest and drink up. It's a hot day." He smiled, and with a rather messy nod, the class scattered off to the canteen.

Smiling to himself, he shook his head slightly and sat back down. He was about to take a sip of water when a teacher approached him.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" Pointing to the seat beside him, the female teacher asked.

Looking up, Arthur was surprised to find the teacher extremely familiar. She wore a pair of red framed glasses, her head of shoulder length blonde hair tied into twin tails, but what really caught his eyes, were the pair of emerald green eyes, and that signature thicker-than-normal eyebrows.

"... Alice?" Before he could notice, he had already muttered the name.

The teacher smiled and sat down beside him. "Told you I'll find you again. "

So... She's really Alice? That bratty younger sister who went all the way to America for her studies? What's she doing in England again? What's she doing in his school?

"To be fair you've told a lot of lies." Arthur smiled. "So what are you doing here? You're not a teacher, are you?"

"Sure I am." She grinned, picking up the teacher's tag hanging around her neck and waving it a little. "Starting from today, I'm your class' history teacher."

"...History." Arthur repeated a strong pinch of doubt in his voice.

Alice nodded, almost beaming.

"You had a huge discussion with mum and dad, then went all the way to America, to further your studies in History teaching." He could feel his left eye twitching.

"Well not really. I planned on learning about computer programming, but you know, circumstances." She shrugged. "Besides, shouldn't you be happy that I'm back? Now you won't have to live alone like the boring old man you're slowly becoming."

"I won't be becoming one any time soon. More importantly, what do you mean won't have to live alone." Arthur was starting to feel imminent danger.

"I called mum and dad and told them I'm back and will be working here, so they told me to come live with you, and make sure you take care of yourself... Oh and preferably show up for the next Christmas dinner with a girlfriend..."Her voice softened as she went on, making it almost inaudible nearing the end.

Arthur lifted a brow. "Show up with what?"

"Turkey. Stuffed turkey." She grinned. "Or just show up, they don't expect much after you isolated yourself for 3 years straight. All the older brothers are missing you too."

He snorted.

"Missing a chance to throw me a punch or two, I assume."

Alice rolled her eyes. "When was honestly the last time you met them? They're all grown up. Scott already got a family! He probably won't try to beat you up anymore." She leaned in closer, grinning. "I heard his wife's given him a real lecture about his tempers."

"About time." He smiled, shaking his head again. "I'll think about going back, but for now, let me just confirm one thing. You've moving in? Staying with me?"

"Positive." She nodded, "Or is it too troublesome? Do you need a day or two to hide your inappropriate books?"

"Wha- I don't have any of those." And if he did, he won't just hide them, he would burn them to ashes before she move in. "I'm just thinking, if you're going to stay, I'll have to go shop for some household items."

"Oh, great." Alice couldn't remember the last time she's smiled so much. Among the brothers, Arthur was definitely the nicest one to get along. His porcupine personality aside, the guy's good-willed inside out.

"Well then how about we go shop after work? I don't know where you live anyway." She suggested, standing up and smoothing the creases on her skirt. "I still have things to settle, so I'll move in after a day or two."

Arthur sighed and nodded; the progression of things was just too fast for him to actually reject or stop it. He guessed he could need a hand with housework once in a while...

"By the way, Alice." He voiced just as she was about to leave. "Why history?"

"Because you always have that pained expression when you help me with history homework. So I figured that one of us has to be good at it." With that, she left to say hi to the other teachers, leaving Arthur a little stunned and more than a little confused.

...

"What does that have to do with anything." Laughing to himself, he picked the bottle up and turned to go back to the teacher's office.

"Welcome home." He muttered, letting the words fade in the autumn wind.

Arthur's got a lot of things to say about the school's sports day, and at the top of the list, was why they had to organize it in the cold windy November.

"Arthur kun, has anything good happened today?" Kiku asked as the latter picked a dusty can of peas off the wrecked supermarket shelf.

"Hmm? Ah... That is one way to put it." registering the can to his items tab, Arthur smiled. The two of them have already ventured into the shopping area, and have agreed on scavenging for food in the nearby supermarket. Apart from the massive mess and layers of dust, Arthur would say that they weren't disappointed by the findings.

No sign of the player yet though... Maybe deeper into the shopping district.

"I see. You have been smiling more often today too. What may the good news be?" Kiku nodded, unsheathing his weapon and with a clean swipe, settled a zombie that suddenly appeared. As expected, they couldn't let their guard down as long as they were out of the safe area.

"My younger sister came back from America, she's staying with me."

"May I assume that you get along with your younger sister?"

"She's... Well she's not as stubborn and weird like most of my family." Arthur described, "In fact, you could say that she's the easiest to approach among my siblings. She likes to pick at people a lot, but not out of any ill will... I'll get her to say hi to you once she settled in."

"She sounds like a very cheerful and interesting person." Kiku smiled. "It will be a great pleasure to meet her."

"Oh, she use to study about computer programming, maybe you two can talk about that too."

The two continued, chatting while occasionally picking a can of food up or slicing a zombie into two. And thus, none of them noticed the nearing footsteps...

* * *

_Next chapter, a summary: Kiku can we please rethink this. Can we please not bring him along. The whole bloody building just collapsed because of him I'm afraid that we'll be short lived if he come with us. Kiku no can we not._


End file.
